


The Rainbow Haversack of Holding

by The_Disaster_Tiefling



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Memories, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, life - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-09-28 19:48:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17189273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Disaster_Tiefling/pseuds/The_Disaster_Tiefling
Summary: A collection of drabbles.





	1. Mollymauk - Harvest Close

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 'Better than He Found It' zine i

Mollymauk Tealeaf lived on borrowed time.

    However, with each second that he stole back from fate, he lived life to its full. There was no thought to the past, to the secrets that had been revealed as he bolted after Fjord that morning, the thrum of excitement in the air calling to him, as alluring as any siren call. Zadash was alive in the early morning sun, a tapestry of colour and life that was a world away from the sides of the city they’d seen so far, and he paused for a moment to drink it in with a deep breath. 

It felt like coming home.

    The swathes of canvas, the peaks of tents peeking over walls reminding him of the familiar skyline of the circus. Hearing the laughter and cheers, watching the people crowding around for a spectacle, eyes wide with wonder and delight - it all reminded him of the circus.  Yet at the same time, it was beautifully, enticingly new, and his lips curled up into an excited grin – in the circus he had been part of the show, part of the magic, but here…

   Here he could be carried along by the flow, embrace it, and his tail was a blur of movement behind him as he followed the others towards the first game, buoyed by the music and warm scents filling the air. He grounded himself, body and soul in the present, entirely at home in the chaos. His sides ached with laughter, warmth suffusing his heart as he drank, played and lived on borrowed time that he made his own.


	2. Mollymauk (Widomauk) - Sleep

    Molly had never been good at waking up in the mornings. There was something about waking up, about coercing heavy eyes to open that reminded him too much of how he had woken in the ground. It didn’t matter what kind of night he’d had, if he’d gone to sleep pleasantly buzzing with alcohol or sex, or if he’d spent the night dreaming in pastel colours, each morning he woke gasping for air as though there was still dirt pressing on his chest. He would claw at the covers over him, fighting to free himself, waiting for the material to give way to crumbling mud.

     It had been easier in the carnival, always waking in the same bedroll, to the same canvas sky and the same people laughing and talking around him. However, it wasn’t always better. There had still been bad days, mornings when he’d woken in a blind panic, lashing out at anyone that tried to hold out a helping hand, but for the most part it had been easier. Being on the road with the Mighty Nein had been an experience, and for the first few days… weeks…months, the mornings had been raw and terrible again, waking in new places, with people that he didn’t know or trust fully sending him back to those panicked mornings, adrift in both the past and present, but with time it had got easier again.

Then there was Caleb…

    Molly had never been shy, and he’d had more than his share of partners and whilst for the most part he would chase them away before sleep, wary of letting them witness his awakenings, some had stayed and seen his mornings. Some had tried to help, fussing and flapping over him. Others had fled, avoiding him for days after. He never blamed them for either. Caleb did neither. The first night they’d spent together had been such a gnarled mess of heat and emotions that Molly hadn’t thought to shoo him away, or warn him of what to come, and it had been a bad morning. He’d woken in a panic, fighting the covers and lashing out against the warm body pressed against him, later discovering that he had managed to draw blood.

   Caleb hadn’t fled. He hadn’t panicked and fussed. Instead he’d waited out the storm, as quiet and patient as he was when learning a spell. Then when Molly’s strength had stared to wane, the panic still there, churning wildly beneath the surface but with nowhere to go, Caleb had moved, pulling him flush against his chest. He was still quiet, only a slight hitching of his breath indicating the stress of the situation, and he was gentle as he pulled Molly as close as possible before guiding his head down to rest above his heart. It wasn’t the calm beat that had lulled him to sleep the night before, its song interrupted by the stress and strain of the morning, but it was soothing, the sound cutting through the haze of panic in a way that words couldn’t.

It was real.

It was warm.

   And it spoke of life, and light, rather than the cold dark of that underground space and for the first time since he’d woken that morning he managed to catch his breath. First one shallow gasp. Then another and another, each deeper and steadier than the last, as he unconsciously falls in line with the cadence of Caleb’s breathing. It steadies him, Caleb’s breathing, Caleb’s heartbeat, tying him to the here and now. There’s gratitude now, and embarrassment, distant emotions, still lost beneath the fading haze of the panic and even if he could get his voice to work, he’s not sure what he would say, what he could say that would be equal to this gift he’s been given.

This anchor.

    Any words that he might have mustered disappearing completely, when there’s the slightest shift in the warm body he’s pressed against, followed by a fleeting pressure on his forehead, warm lips banishing the last of the chill that had grasped him. The warmth remains even when Caleb pulls away, and finally the wizard breaks the silence, voice soft, the words for Molly’s ears alone as he murmurs the words that Molly hadn’t even realised he’d needed until they were spoken.

“You are Mollymauk Tealeaf, and you are alive.” 

 


	3. Caleb - ep 50 (spoilers)

_Fuck you! Your people did this!_

    The words are still there, gnawing at the back of his mind, burrowing deeper under his skin than any crystal ever had. Logically he knew that they were back on an even keel, or what passed for one in their chaotic, patchwork group, but the cracks were there, and the darkness and strain of the journey through the tunnel had bled into them.

    The words are there when they talk about what might lay ahead, screaming in his head as he looks at Nott and sees her fear and desperation, realising that she hadn’t taken a sip of alcohol since they’d entered the tunnel. She was being brave for a halfling he had yet to meet, and her beautiful child who had taken Caleb’s breath away – because Nott had a family, one that she had fought to protect and had paid the price to keep them safe. Unlike him…it’s guilt, and love, and self-loathing that makes him reassure her that they are going to keep going. That they’re not going to turn aside now. That he’s not going to turn aside. It’s not courage.

    Just as it’s not courage that prompts him to remain in the open, waiting to make sure that Nott comes back to them. To him. He’s quivering, shaking, his fear amped up by the fact that there is fire all around him. A fire that he can’t control. Fire more powerful than anything he can conjure. Fire that could steal Nott away from him that could take his family away again. So, he trembles and waits, thoughts like quicksilver in his mind as he calculates what’s going to happen, a leaden weight in the pit of his stomach when the numbers don’t fall in their favour.

He can’t lose her.

He won’t.

     It’s not courage. It’s love, and fear – fear of losing her, fear of failure, fear of having to live with those words in the back of his mind without having the chance to make amends.

_Your people did this!_

   Her words are a crescendo in the back of his mind as she falls, as the fire starts to steal her away, her voice raised in fear and pain…like the other voices, the ones that haunt his waking moments as much as they haunt his dreams. He doesn’t have a plan. He doesn’t have the answers. Yet as her voice trails off, leaving him with nothing but the echo of her angry words, he prepares to move forward, because he’s not one of them anyone. He’s not a puppet. He’s not Bren. The old him, the one that itches beneath the scarred skin of his arms and drives his search for knowledge wouldn’t do this – not for courage, or love, or any one of the thoughts flickering through his mind. He’s different, changed, a man with and without a future, and the possibility of change and redemption.

Because of her…

He steps forward, arcane energy dancing on his fingers…

_I’m yours now._

_Not theirs._

 


End file.
